1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to advertising displays and more specifically to multi-media advertising display stands or kiosks.
2. General Background and State of the Art
Advertisements appearing in locations such as shopping mall venues, airport shops, restaurants, bowling alleys and other locales having either a common area or an area designated for advertising come in many forms. Typically, in-store advertising is provided in the form of hanging signs, window displays, poster stands, and wall posters disposed about the store. These devices are static and need to be replaced when the information changes such as the ending of a sale or change in merchandise. In addition, such static forms of advertising do not always catch the attention of the shopper or prospective buyer. The use of enlarged lettering, startling colors, and nearby blinking lights is common methods to increase the likelihood of the advertisement being observed by the potential customer. However, such devices are not typically constructed to blend into the store's surrounding but instead stand out and thus may not be aesthetically pleasing. Some stores, particularly clothing stores, have been known to incorporate a wall of televisions to provide an ambience in the store such as by playing popular videos or commercials for the in-store products. However, such a wall of televisions is usually out of place with the motif of the store and more often than not the videos have nothing to do with the merchandise.
Outside the stores in common areas, advertising is typically provided by a poster stand near a directory. These posters may be backlighted and more sophisticated stands allow for two or three posters to be shown in the same display window by rotating the posters on a conveyor or using a reversible shutter system. In addition, the flexibility to advertise for more than one retailer is necessary to accommodate multiple tenants but such devices suffer from lack of advertising space. Both the stores and common areas may have conflicting themes or motifs that may have to be accommodated by the advertising devices. Typically, a bland, neutral approach is taken to try to accommodate multiple parties but this approach results in doing little to add to the decorum of the locale.
While the above described advertising devices have their uses, they generally suffer from being static in nature, requiring extensive efforts to upkeep fresh content and thus somewhat costly to maintain, creating a blight on the surrounding environment, and from being resistant to relocation. Thus, there exists a need for an attractive multi-media advertising display system capable of blending into a surrounding environment while providing fresh transitional advertising that may be readily tailored to both individual and multiple settings as well as facilitate relocation.